The recent Monica Baey incident brought up a lot of meaningful dialogue.

This include, how seriously do we treat these types of incidents, what more can we do to ensure a safer environment for students, and how do we go about bringing forth those changes.

Most Singaporeans, for the most part, appeared to understand that attitudes had to change for the system to change, and no one change can serve as a magic bullet to make everything better.

Others blamed porn.

Core issue

On May 20, 2019, Roslyn Snodgrass Seah wrote a forum letter to The Straits Times, somehow connecting the Monica Baey incident, the rise in molestation cases, and Peeping Tom cases in hall to an increased access in pornography:

"The sharp spike is most likely due to easy access to pornography via the Internet, now also available on the ubiquitous smartphone."

She then cited local experts who appear to see a high correlation in watching pornagraphy and sexual assaults or misdemeanours:

"Local experts say that this could lead to sexual crimes because those who start with online behaviour quickly start to act out in new ways offline."

Seah does not provide any links to the local experts, but there have been literature that dispels the notion that pornography and sexual assault have a direct link.

All this was proof enough for her to give these recommendations, before Singaporeans found themselves on the slipperiest of slopes:

"All pornographic websites should be banned by the Infocomm Media Development Authority, children and parents should be educated on the dangers of watching pornography, and filters should be made to prevent pornographic material from seeping into smartphones or Internet television.

Some citizens have developed software applications to circumvent Web-blocking.

It is time to harness the expertise of the many law-abiding Internet-savvy citizens to counter this and, together with the Government, block all pornographic websites."

You can read the full letter here.

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